by Penny Jordan
He couldn’t endure to live without her any longer, Sean recognised bleakly. Even knowing all that he knew about her!
CHAPTER EIGHT
KATE WOKE UP slowly and languorously, her mouth curling into a smile of remembered bliss. Still half asleep, she stretched her body. Its telltale ache made her smile deepen. There was nothing like waking up in the morning filled with feel-good hormones, she acknowledged happily, reaching out her hand to Sean.
Sean! The speed with which she was catapulted from her warm security to stark reality physically hurt.
She sat up in the bed, her mind an agitated jumble of anxious, angry thoughts. The clothes she had been intending to pack had gone, and so too had the suitcases! The realisation that it was nine o’clock in the morning increased her agitation. It had been late afternoon when she had come up here, and...
Frantically she reined in her speeding thoughts. She couldn’t believe she had slept so long and so deeply—although Sean had always teased her about it, claiming that he took it as a compliment that his lovemaking fulfilled her to such an extent.
The very words ‘Sean’ and ‘lovemaking’ linked together were making her heart thud erratically—with fury, she told herself crossly, not because of any other reason.
The sudden opening of her bedroom door brought an abrupt halt to her thoughts.
‘Mummy!’
Kate’s heart turned over as she looked at her son. He was wearing some of the new clothes Sean had insisted on buying for him: a pair of workman-like denim dungarees that made him look heartbreakingly grown up and yet endearingly little-boyish at the same time.
‘We’ve brought you your breakfast,’ he said excitedly.
Kate’s heart plummeted at his ‘we’, and she prayed it was the housekeeper he was referring to, not Sean. But the tension in her stomach told her that it was Sean even before he followed Oliver into her room, carrying a heavily laden tray.
‘You’ve been asleep for a very long time,’ Oliver reproached her, and then beamed from ear to ear. ‘Mummy, I made your toast—and my daddy helped me...’
All three of them froze, and above and beyond her own anguish Kate was seared by the look in Oliver’s eyes, his face scarlet as he ran to her and clambered onto the bed, burying his hot, embarrassed face against her body. Automatically she wrapped her arms protectively around him. Unlike Kate, he was too young to recognise why he had called Sean his daddy, but he was not too young to know that he should not have done.
Over Oliver’s downbent head Sean looked at Kate, and he put down the tray in silence before turning to leave.
* * *
It couldn’t be put off any longer, Kate told herself fiercely. Her heart had bled drops of pure concentrated emotion for her son, his betrayal of his feelings and his need, but Oliver’s innocent indication of the role he longed to have Sean play in his life had hardened her resolve to leave.
It filled her with a pain like no other she had ever known to recognise her son’s vulnerability. How much unintentional damage had she already done by letting him know Sean?
She was well aware of the old cynical saying that it was a wise child that knew its own father. But what if somehow, somewhere, unknown to modern scientists, there was a primitive, instinctive bond between father and child that had been activated by Sean’s appearance in Oliver’s life?
The feelings she had experienced at Oliver’s realisation of his faux pas in calling Sean his ‘daddy’ went way beyond tears. Of course she had pretended not to be aware of the cause of Oliver’s crimson face and discomfort, had coaxed him to share her toast and to tell her about the previous afternoon’s activities, when the housekeeper had let him play with the dog and then given him his tea.
But even that had been a mistake, Kate reflected unhappily. Because Oliver had gone on to tell her that Sean had collected him from the housekeeper’s quarters, brought him back, given him his bath and read his story to him.
‘D— Sean said that you were very tired and needed to sleep.’ Oliver’s innocent comment had torn at her heart as Kate had acknowledged just why she had ‘needed to sleep’.
But even worse than that had been the longingly hopeful look in Oliver’s eyes when he had looked up at her and told her, ‘I want to stay here for ever, with Nell... and with Sean...’
Kate’s heart had sunk when he had suddenly avoided looking at her.
‘Well, it has been very nice here,’ she had agreed, trying to sound calm. ‘But what about George? He’s your friend and—’
Oliver had stopped her stubbornly. ‘Sean is my friend, and so is Nell. A dog can be a friend, and Nell is mine!’ And had completely defeated her when he had added, ‘I wish that Sean was my daddy.’
Now, from the sitting room window, she could see Oliver industriously helping the gardener to ‘weed’. Helplessly she closed her eyes against her own pain.
When she opened them again she could see Sean’s reflection in the glass beside her own. Immediately she turned round.
‘We need to talk,’ Sean told her flatly.
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’ Kate stopped him bitterly. ‘I’ve almost finished packing, and—’ Unable to stop herself, she said quickly, ‘I know you must think that I primed Oliver to...to say what he said. But I didn’t. He sees George with Tom and... He...he’s had this bee in his bonnet for a while, about not having a father...’
Sean recognised that the new name she had chosen for herself suited her. She was Kate now, a woman. Not Kathy, a girl. And he knew that there was something about Kate that he responded to as a man. Kathy the girl had gone, and it grieved him to know that this maturing process had taken place without him being there to share in it. And if that grieved him how the hell was he going to feel if she spent the rest of her life apart from him?
‘I’ve got a proposition to put to you,’ he said curtly. ‘Or perhaps I should more properly say a proposal,’ he amended heavily into the silence that followed his initial words.
‘A proposal?’ Kate tasted the word cautiously, her stomach churning. What was he going to do? Offer her money to take Oliver away and deny that he was his father? ‘What kind of proposal?’ she challenged him suspiciously. The look he was giving her was decidedly ironic.
‘I thought you knew, Kate, that in my world there is only one kind of proposal a man makes to a woman the morning after they have spent the night together. Anything else would be a proposition.’ When she went rigid and simply stared at him, he elucidated tiredly, ‘I am asking you to marry me, Kate.’
The shock ran through her like lightning, a vivid flash of disbelief followed by an unbelievably intense and coruscating pain, out of which she could only demand sharply, ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because I want you back as my wife, and—’ Sean turned his head and looked out across the lawn, his face averted so that Kate could not see his expression as he added emotionlessly, ‘And because I want Oliver as my son.’
It was, Kate decided, almost as though she was hearing Sean speak from very far away, through an impenetrable glass wall.
The angry and rejecting words, But Oliver is your son rolled like thunder through her heart, but somehow she managed to hold them back. And she held them back because inside her head she had a painfully clear image of a small boy who desperately wanted a father. If she knew anything about Sean she knew that he was a man who committed himself totally and completely to everything he decided to do—almost single-mindedly so at times.
She had seen for herself the rapport he was developing with Oliver, and she knew that to pretend such a bond was simply not in Sean’s nature. But she could not and would not take risks with her son’s emotional future!
‘Your son?’ she questioned coldly ‘But, Sean, you have already refused to accept that Oliver is your son. You have told me that you believe another man fathe
red him, and, believing that—’
‘That isn’t a road I’m prepared to go down.’ Sean stopped her sharply. When he saw her face he demanded savagely, ‘Don’t you realise how it feels for me to know that there’s been another man in your life? In your bed? Didn’t last night tell you anything about how much I still want you? The only way I can deal with this is to draw a line under it, Kate, to box it up and bury it somewhere so deep that it can never be disinterred.’
‘Do you think it’s any different for me? You were unfaithful to me, Sean.’
‘You can forget all about her, Kate. She never really—’
‘Meant anything to you?’ Kate stopped him bitingly.
Sean looked away from her. He had almost fallen into the trap of saying that the other woman had never really existed!
What would Kate think if she knew the pitiful, pathetic truth about him? How would she react? Would she pity him? Reject him? Would knowing the truth enable her to understand how deeply and completely he loved Oliver and wanted to be a father to him?
A part of him yearned to share his knowledge and his pain with her, but his pride held him back.
‘Oliver needs a father,’ he said heavily instead. ‘And I—’
‘You want to take pity on us?’ Kate suggested angrily, reluctant to admit even to herself just how strongly his impassioned words had touched her emotions.
‘No,’ Sean denied, the glimmer of ironic self-mockery glinting in his eyes, concealing his pain. ‘I want you and Oliver to take pity on me.’
It was as close as he could bring himself to telling her the truth.
When she didn’t answer he told her bleakly, ‘Both of us know how it feels to grow up without the love of a parent. Oliver wants a father.’
Kate couldn’t stand any more. The words Oliver has a father burned on her lips, but in the garden she could see her son, and already she knew how much it would mean to him if she agreed to what Sean was suggesting. ‘I—I...’ As she tried to squeeze out her denial all she could hear was Oliver calling Sean his daddy.
She might be able to resist all the emotional pressure that Sean could possibly put on her, but no way could she resist that special sound she had heard in her son’s voice.
She took a deep breath. ‘Very well. I accept. But if you ever, ever do anything to hurt Oliver I shall leave you there and then,’ she warned him passionately.
She had already turned away from him when she heard him coming after her. As she stopped moving he took hold of her, imprisoning her in his arms whilst he kissed her with fierce passion.
Helplessly Kate felt her mouth softening beneath his, and her traitorous body, still flooded with sensual memories of his lovemaking, simply softened into his until she was moulded against him so closely that she might have been a part of him. He might have started the kiss, but she was the one who prolonged it, Kate recognised hazily as her mouth clung to his, and she gave in to her need to trace the shape of his mouth with her tongue-tip and to slide her fingers into the thick darkness of his hair.
Against her body she could feel the hard pulse of his erection. Mindlessly she pressed closer to it, waiting for Sean to cup her breast with his hand and discover the hard eagerness of her nipple. But instead he pushed her way from him, breaking the kiss.
Humiliated, she was about to walk away from him when she heard him saying in quiet explanation and warning, ‘Oliver!’
It shocked her to realise that Sean had been more aware of their son’s approach than her, but her hope that Oliver had not witnessed their intimacy foundered as he stepped through the open French window and immediately demanded, ‘Why were you kissing Sean, Mummy?’
Before Kate could think of anything to say, Sean answered for her, telling him calmly, ‘We were kissing because we are going to get married, and that’s what married people do.’
As he finished speaking Sean kneeled down and held out his arms to Oliver. ‘I’ve asked your mummy to marry me, Oliver. And now there’s something I want to ask you.’ Kate couldn’t help it; emotion welled up inside her. But it was nothing to what she felt when Sean continued, ‘Will you let me be your daddy, Oliver?’
The look on Oliver’s face as it lit up with delight was all the answer he needed to give—that and the fact that he threw himself bodily into Sean’s arms!
As Sean stood up, hoisting Oliver onto his shoulder, the little boy was chanting, ‘Daddy—Daddy. I can call you Daddy now, can’t I, Sean?’
As Sean nodded his head Kate was sure she could see the glint of moisture in his eyes.
CHAPTER NINE
SEAN HAD INSISTED on a church ceremony, much to Kate’s surprise, and even more surprising was just how very much like a new bride she actually felt, standing in the doorway of the small church ready to walk down the aisle to where Sean was waiting for her.
The graceful dress she was wearing was cream, the heavy satin fabric rustling expensively as she turned to look down at Oliver. ‘Ready, Ollie?’ she asked him tenderly.
He had been so excited about today, but now that it was here he looked round-eyed and slightly over-awed.
John was going to give her away, but it was Oliver who was going to walk down the aisle with her. That had been her decision, and one that Sean had listened to in shuttered-eyed silence.
Inside the church, with the heat of the sun shut away, the timelessness of this place where people had worshipped century upon century cast its own special grace over them as Oliver reached up and slipped his hand into hers.
Together, as the sound of the organ music surged and swelled, mother and son walked towards the man waiting for them, and into whose care they were giving themselves.
They had almost reached him when Oliver tugged on Kate’s hand and announced in a loud stage whisper, ‘Mummy, I’m really glad that Sean is going to marry us.’
Kate completed the last few steps in a blur of tears, totally overwhelmed by her emotions.
The artfully simple bouquet of lilies and greenery she carried were removed from her by Carol, but when her friend went to take Oliver’s hand, to lead him away, Sean shook his head and took it himself.
Then, with Oliver standing between them and both of them holding one of his hands, the vicar began the service that would reunite them, bind them not just as husband and wife, but this time as parents as well.
* * *
‘Okay?’
As the bells pealed in celebration of their marriage and the sun shone down Kate nodded mutely. Surely she wasn’t still brooding on the perfunctory kiss with which Sean had acknowledged his new commitment to her, was she?
She had remarried him because he was Oliver’s father, and not for any other reason, she told herself fiercely.
Their wedding breakfast was being held in a private dining room at a very exclusive local hotel, and from there they were flying to Italy for a few days. Initially she had tried to protest, but Sean had overruled her, announcing that the three of them needed time together alone, away from their normal environment, to start establishing their new roles in one another’s lives.
Of the three of them, Oliver had certainly had no difficulties whatsoever in adapting. The word ‘daddy’ seemed to leave his lips with increasing regularity. In fact she could hear him saying it now, as he beamed up at Sean and told him importantly that he was now his little boy.
A small shadow touched Kate’s face.
‘I want to adopt Oliver legally,’ Sean had told her abruptly the previous week.
Kate had refused to respond. How could he adopt his own son?
* * *
Kate opened her eyes reluctantly, unwilling to abandon the dream she had just been having in which she had been lying in Sean’s arms, their naked bodies entwined. The huge bed in their hotel suite was empty of her husband, though. Last night, follo
wing their arrival, when she had seen the suite, she had unwisely exclaimed, ‘Are we all in the same room?’
‘I thought you’d prefer it that way,’ Sean had responded.
‘Yes. I do,’ Kate had agreed, but she knew that a tiny part of her couldn’t help comparing the circumstances of this, their second honeymoon, to the first one they had shared. Their surroundings might not have been anything like as luxurious, but even the air in the small room had been so drenched with the scent of their love and hunger for one another that it had been an aphrodisiac all on its own.
That had been then, though, and this was now!
And where was Oliver? The small bed Sean had insisted on having set up in their room was also empty.
Anxiously she pushed back the bedclothes and reached for her robe. They’d arrived so late in the evening that she had done no more than nod in acceptance of Sean’s description of their suite and its facilities, but now, as she pushed opened the door onto their private patio, she caught her breath in delight.
The hotel had originally been a small palace, and their suite was at ground level for Oliver’s benefit. From the patio Kate could see the still blue water of the hotel’s breathtakingly effective infinity pool. The sound of splashing water to the side of her caught her attention, and she froze as she realised that it was Oliver who was causing it, and Sean stood at his side in what was obviously a children’s swimming area, encouraging him to swim.
Encouraging him to swim! But Ollie couldn’t swim. She had done everything she could to get him to swim, right from him being a baby, but he had steadfastly clung on to his terror of the water. Until now... Until Sean...
Out of nowhere a feeling she just did not want to analyse struck her. She felt excluded, unwanted. She felt jealous, Kate recognised, angry with herself for having such feelings.
Sean had told her that he wanted to remarry her because of Oliver, but suddenly it was striking her exactly what that meant.
Sean had always wanted a son, and now, as a very successful businessman, no doubt he wanted one even more. Given his own childhood, Kate could see that creating his own dynasty would appeal to Sean. But that did not mean that he loved Oliver—and it certainly didn’t mean that he loved her.